Minority Report

Summary

Having heard good things about this movie, I was expecting a lot. The movie is
fairly compelling and met my expectations. The story is mostly believable if
you accept the whole premise of precognition, which is the least plausible part
of the film. Most of the technology is cool and the plot is easy enough to
follow without the viewer being bashed on the head with it.

The movie is fairly timely with all of the recent changes in law and
enforcement in the US due to Sept 11. I was reminded of the importance of some
basic freedoms like the principle of innocence until proven guilty. The movie
also illustrated the danger of giving law enforcement too much power. I would
guess the movie was already being made before last September so the timing
probably wasn't intentional, but it's still a good thing.

Nit-picks

There were plenty of things to nit-pick, however (minor spoiler alert - if you
haven't seen the movie you might want to stop reading here):

The fist-fight scene in the factory was too predictable. When the
protagonist and antagonist both climb onto the hanging platform I groaned in
anticipation of the stereotypical duel. I suspect Spielberg wanted to pad the
chase and fight sequences to promote this as an action flick instead of a
sci-fi. Overall this section was formulaic and just seemed too "Hollywood".

The concept of directed ads and personalized billboards is cool, but the way
they were shown in this film was unrealistic. Maybe Speilberg thought it was
too hard to show more realistic advertising and not futuristic enough
if it was left out.

There were eye-scanners to unlock various obscure doors. I can't think of
any reason why these scanners would not be connected to central tracking
computers like those in the subway. It was hard to believe that there would be
such obvious weaknesses in the movie technology, but it was essential to the
plot.

Of course, the technology for scanning the brain and retrieving images seems
pretty far-fetched. My girlfriend is a neuroscience major and she says so, so
there.

Some things like the clothes fashions and architecture weren't very
different from today. Sure it's hard to come up with costumes and sets that
don't look stupid, but glowing store windows make a shopping mall look more like
a dream sequence than futuristic.

Oh yeah, and what about all of the photographs in Leo Crow's apartment?
Won't photos be a relic in 50 years?

Still, this was an enjoyable movie and I didn't feel like I completely wasted my
$6.75.